Since printed circuit boards (PCB) are essential to the electronics manufacturing business, it is good for electronics producers to learn as much as possible about the process and how to streamline the process for their projects. By knowing the details of the business and finding the right company for their printed circuit board design, these electronics clients can save time, money and get the right results every time.
Where to Find PCBs
In the modern world, brimming with technology, PCBs are nearly everywhere. Used to route signals and communicate data and power through devices, printed circuit boards are essential to modern society in their quiet and unassuming way. These layered and laminated constructions, atop substrate board, serve to make technological products work properly. PCBs are found in smartphones, smart watches, tablets, laptops, video game consoles, television sets, pagers and beepers at one time, MRI machines, airplane controls, automotive controls and much more.
What Makes a PCB a PCB?
A printed circuit board starts with a board made of a conductive material, called a substrate. This insulating board can derive from different materials, most often plastic and reinforced with glass, as long as it is insulated and conductive. Atop these boards, PCB manufacturers, or “fabricators,” connect copper lines cut from a copper layer — these copper lines are also known as “traces” — and pads that they connect together. These traces allow electrical charge to move, or flow, through the PCB, thus extending power to each component that they have systematically laid out on the board in logical and efficient ways to make the product work as quickly, seamlessly and accurately as possible. The copper lines guide electricity to the appropriate destination, which makes them pretty critical to the processes of most electronic items upon which so many people rely.
Layers Caked on PCBs
PCBs vary these days, but they started out as single sided boards that featured one copper layer of data. Eventually, designers found ways of using both sides of the board for more efficiency and more data within a given space. Each new layer, on each side, adds levels of complexity since they feature their own copper trace formations. This development was essential as electronics manufacturers have continued to add more features, data and speed to their products. PCB fabricators realized they needed to add that second layer, as well as many other innovations through the years, since they could not allow copper connections to cross each other. PCBs continue to evolve to adjust to the market’s increasing needs.
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